Today is Kelly’s birthday. Our garden themed celebrations included:
- Giving the teenage chickens a new branch to roost on and spending time watching them be adorable.
- Drinking what will be one of this year’s last batches of fresh squeezed orange juice.
- Noticing a suspiciously loud buzzing coming from our newest hive (yes, we finally managed to move the swarm that stung me). Kelly thinks they may have swarmed again this afternoon, but she couldn’t find them anywhere.
- Receiving a visit from a beekeeping friend who gave us “follower boards” to add to one of our hives to help with ventilation.
- Adding said follower boards to April, one of our package hives, and attempting to remove copious amounts of burr comb without killing bees and brood (a horrible, stressful, thankless task that invariably ends in heartbreak).
- Visiting the chickens again at dusk and having Petunia fly up to perch on first Kelly’s shoulder, and then mine. We put them to bed for their second full night in the coop, and they hardly complained at all.
- Next up: baking shortbread to be topped with (garden) lemon curd and raspberries.
Disclaimer: this picture is not from today. I neglected to chronicle the day's adventures visually. This gorgeous yellow thing is a volunteer Black-eyed Susan that graced our garden all summer last year. There's a native bee perched atop--a male Melissodes robustior, to be exact. (You'll get a much better view if you click to enlarge.)
